How Macmillan fooled spy Guy Burgess to remain in exile

One of Britain's most notorious traitors was tricked into staying in exile in Moscow by a Government that knew it had insufficient evidence to convict him of espionage. Guy Burgess could have come home untouched by British justice whenever he wanted despite having worked within the Establishment for almost two decades as a Soviet agent.

Formerly top secret Cabinet documents discovered by The Daily Telegraph show that Harold Macmillan, then prime minister, organised a top-level cover-up to disguise the fact that it could not prosecute Burgess, the notorious Cambridge spy, for treason. Burgess defected in 1951 with his friend Donald Maclean, who was about to be arrested for espionage. Eight years later he wanted to come back to visit his dying mother, Evelyn, the documents discovered in the National Archives in Kew disclose...